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Rent allowance helps members with costs of renting in the private housing market. It usually doesn't cover all your rent.

You need to find, pay for and maintain the home you rent. Your lease is between you and your landlord.

How much you may get

Defence uses rent ceilings and contribution rates to help work out how much rent allowance you may get.

Your rent allowance is equal to the relevant rent ceiling minus your contribution.

Defence reviews housing contributions each year to reflect market changes. 

You can calculate how much rent allowance you may get using the Defence Housing Australia rent allowance calculator. You'll need to enter information about your circumstances to get an accurate result.

Rent ceilings and contribution amounts

Rent ceilings are the maximum Defence will pay towards your rent. The amount depends on your circumstances, location and rank.

You'll also need to pay a contribution towards your rent. If your rent is higher than the rent ceiling amount, you'll need to pay the difference.

Defence reviews rent ceilings and contribution rates every year to reflect market changes. The review usually increases the amounts you get. This review is different to the DHA rent allowance review when you get rent allowance.

If you live in an extended housing benefit location, your rent ceiling will be the lesser of:

  • the rent ceiling where you live within the extended housing benefit location
  • the rent ceiling which would have applied if you lived in your original housing benefit location without the extension.

If you have accompanied resident family (ARF) 

Select your preferred number of bedrooms from the following dropdowns.

The tables show fortnightly rent ceiling and contributions according to location and rank. These are based on ranks in the Australian Army. You can check your equivalent rank.

You can check rent ceilings for the rank of Major General (or equivalent).

If you have no resident family or recognised other persons (ROP) or if you have unaccompanied resident family (URF) 

The following rates apply if you're sharing your home with a person over 18 years who is neither your resident family and not a recognised other person. Select your preferred living situation from the dropdowns.

The tables show fortnightly rent ceilings and contributions according to location and rank. These are based on ranks in the Australian Army. You can check your equivalent rank.

You can check rent ceilings for the rank of Major General (or equivalent) when living alone. Rent ceilings don’t apply to the rank of Major General (or equivalent) or higher when sharing with others.

When you can't get rent allowance

You can't get rent allowance for you or your family if you:

  • have a suitable own home in your housing benefit location (unless you have unaccompanied resident family)
  • reject a suitable Service residence
  • choose to move out of your Service residence
  • are evicted from a Service residence or LIA because of your own actions.

When you can get rent allowance

You usually need to live in your housing benefit location to be eligible for rent allowance.

If you have accompanied resident family (ARF) 

You may get rent allowance if you have accompanied resident family and:

If you have unaccompanied resident family (URF) 

You may get rent allowance for a home in your housing benefit location if you aren't required to stay in living-in accommodation (LIA).

You may also get rent allowance for your family in the family benefit lcoation if there are no suitable Service residences available for them or they don’t live in your own home.

If you have no resident family and no recognised other persons 

You may get rent allowance in your housing benefit location if you:

In some cases you may be required to live on-base. You can request to live off-base from your Commanding Officer.

Read more about this topic

Find out how to get rent allowance.

Learn what happens once you're getting rent allowance.

On this site

Check your equivalent rank.

Other websites

View the DHA rent allowance calculator.


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